i am about to get a mature female C. longi' and i really really REALLY want to get this species established in the hobby this time around! (due to living situation a couple/few years back i had to get rid of virtually all my bugs, including the two (or three?) species of Calisoga i collected on an awesome bug trip)


i was wondering who else keeps them?


i am also looking for mature males for purchase, trade, or 50/50









(note: *technically* this spider is known as Brachythele longitarsus... but that just plain doesn't make sense and a worker needs to fix it)

it appears males can mature in about 2 years then, possibly a bit less. *i would guess that means a female could be mature in maybe 3-5 years, grown the same way. *which means about a 10-15 year life span, grown the same way

so i would guess they can do about 20 years in nature, if they are lucky

VERY rough extrapolations, of course

they do seem to be somewhat substantiated by other captive experiences... i.e. having mature females live 3+ years in captivity





man, that actually makes me pretty happy. if they grew *a bit faster i wold be a bit happier... but i am well pleased with that. *they grow quick enough that if we do things right we could have a good amount of breedable, beautiful mature females in 4-6 years. *that's not so very bad. *some of the dang local tarantulas roughly double all those time values i gave


oh man! * if everyone is very careful we might be able to selectively breed them to be faster growing! *it would be pretty easy... everyone who wants to play along at home would just need to track how fast their various slings mature... and we would just breed all the fastest maturing together. *then we can line breed the fastest maturing male from the first round of selective breeding back to his mom to hopefully lock in those fast growing genes. a bit more play like that and i bet we could get males that mature in 1.25 or 1.5 years by the third generation. *we might even be able to compress that down to a year by the fifth or sixth generation if we are lucky. *once we have fast growing spiders we can then breed for color or size and not have to wait 20 years to do 4 or 5 female generations.


of course, we would have to be careful to cull out any spiders who manifest goofiness or ugliness =P

I guess these are my fears about captive breeding - selective breeding to alter the natural form of the animal. Sort of like taking a perfectly good wolf and turning it into a Chihuahua. I realize that selective breeding is inevitable - captivity itself imposes some selective pressures - but to deliberately set out to alter maturation rates, goofiness or ugliness is all too close to the AKC approach. Add hybridization and you've got a real mess.

Other than that - the species you're working with is cool. I've got a couple immatures (though they must be getting close to maturity). They're nice looking spiders, as large as some of the dwarf tarantulas, and although they burrow, mine have done it up against the side of the cage so they are still visible.

they way i see it, we are basically weakening the species in captivity so badly it really doesn't matter

in nature, maybe 1-10% of a given clutch will live to reproductive age. the quickest, toughest animals live and get to spread their genes. in captivity ppl will coddle the weakest, most pathetic animals from a sac and try to breed them, regardless of fitness. so in essense we are unevolving our spiders something fierce


i typically cull out the bottom 10-50% of any captive produced animals i make through privation. i only want the strongest, most fit animals to survive and spread their genes

well, so far so good. i got a male from http://www.kenthebugguy.com and once he and my female seemed like they were settled in and ready to go i introduced them. the male quickly started body bobbing and a little tapping and then wandered around until he found the females burrow. he actually then lured her out and they mated with her half in/half out of her burrow entrance. the male did some trance dance and then went for the close clutch and got some inserts in. they stayed close for ~5 minutes and then he started retrancing her. i thought it might be to make his escape but it was actually to go in for more inserts. then i bumped the cage and he separated and i removed him. going to wait a couple few days and let them each have a meal before trying again

this species has always been easy to mate in my experience. i believe this is around my sixth pairing between 3-4 females and 3 males and there has never been any grief

it seems like well fed and kept reasonably warm both males and females can mature in around 2 years, though 3+ for females would not be unreasonable for most ppl


zoom --> http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/ ... ail01b.jpg

also, i shot some vid and am going to try to get some more and more pics the next time i mate them... so i should have a youtube presently

female, with food





zoom -> http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/ ... ood02b.jpg


zoom -> http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/ ... ood03b.jpg
zoomer -> http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/ ... ood03c.jpg


zoom -> http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/ ... ood04b.jpg

Andrew,

I'm going to keep following this thread, as these are defiantly one of the nicest true spiders out there. And what a show they put on!

Thanks for keeping this updated, I am looking forward to your successful breeding.

Christian

thanks. i think they are pretty amazing from a USA native

they are Mygalomorphs, though. not true spiders. they are not too far from Theraphosidae. functionally the main difference is in degree of scopulation. these spiders can not glass walk like a tarantula can

Ah, my mistake, thanks. Nearby family then? I see some arguments online regarding their position. Have you kept up with this as well?

they are family Nemesiidae which is pretty close to Theraphosidae

the issue is that technically they are Brachythele longitarsus not Calisoga longitarsus. but B is an african only genus (well, supposed to be) and this is a result of like zootaxo naming rules. iirc, someone tried to rename them into Calisoga in the 1990's but it didn't work

pretty much all the info online about them (including hobby stuff) is under Calisoga longitarsus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0nb62ll4UI

My Silver Spiders - Calisoga longitarsus

Calisoga longitarsus (technically known as Brachythele longitarsus due to a taxonomy error long in the past) are members of the family Nemesiidae, which is not too distantly related to Theraphosidae, the tarantula family.

Adult females range from about 3-4" (8-10cm) diagonal legspan. Adult males can approach this legspan, but are a much lighter build. Some adult males are considerably smaller than females, around 1/8 their weight. In salubrious conditoins in captivity males can mature in under 2 years (and die well under 3 years) and females can mature in under 3 years and live to around 10 years. In nature all these times are probably doubled (with long lifespans to lucky females).

Adult females and near adults of both sexes are typically very quick to present a threat display. They will bite a careless owner, but one (nice) functional difference between these spiders and tarantulas is that these spiders do not have enough sticky pads on their feet to climb vertical smooth surfaces, like glass. This makes managing sometimes crabby spiders much easier!

The coloration of these spiders is particularly interesting. In most light conditions they are essentially brown, with only hints of their metallic colors. In the right kinds of bright light, like a camera flash and some natural and room lighting they show off much more dramatic effects. They become silver with baby blue highlights and rainbow iridescense. The babies start out a sort of translucent white color and do not gain this adult coloration until they are around half grown. Even then, the enhanced coloration is most apparent in adults. Mature females and males display full enhancement, contrary to a lot of other "fancy" mygalomorph/tarantula species.

Thanks for watching.

Mine mated back in November. But no eggs yet. I suspect that season may have an influence, and am hoping that with the coming of warm Spring weather something will develop. The female has a deep burrow (fortunately up against the edge of the container, so I can keep track of her easily) and the male stays on the surface.

i agree, i figure it's still pretty chilly in most of their range and they almost certainly have to register that winter is over. i think even southern CA tarantulas have to, and these guys should have a more dramatic seasonal variation and colder winters than most of "my" tarantulas

As mentioned above, my Calisogas mated back in mid-November. The female has been living in a deep burrow, which fortunately is up against the side of the cage so I've been able to watch her all this time. Not much activity during the winter. For the past couple weeks though she's been getting conspicuously plump. Then two days ago she suddenly webbed up a section of her burrow - lots of webbing appeared pretty much in one night, although I think she's added to it since then. She appears to be pretty much contained in that webbing, with no apparent opening going to the surface. My guess is that this is a prelude to the egg sac, which for all I know may already exist. (I can't see into the web mass.)

So now I wait and watch - and hope that if babies appear I'll notice it before they start to disperse.

Following up on the previous post - the female constructed a very dense web structure in the large chamber of her burrow - much larger than an egg sac would be. And the female is often outside that structure, usually tucked under one edge of it. The structure is in the middle of the chamber, not up against the sides of it, but attached to both the floor and ceiling of the chamber. Reminds me of a funnel web in some ways, and there is an opening near the top through which the female can enter/exit. To me this is interesting because it doesn't fit my previous expectations of silk-lined burow, egg sac, etc.

Another update - babies! Last night the mother was inside the web structure instead of sitting next to it as usual. And this morning babies were starting to crawl out of the web structure. They're still staying at the bottom of the burrow, and I'll be watching to see if they start working their ways to the surface.

Is it nerdy that I am more excited about this than I get about most exotic mating? Maybe I just like to see our natives make it into CB circulation. Very cool, Bill...maybe we'll get to see them up close in Tucson?

I don't yet know how many babies there are. I've promised a couple to a friend in California, and I'll keep a few for myself. But anything beyond that will probably be at the conference, possibly at the raffle table.

This morning, more than a week after the conference, the first of the babies crawled up out of the burrow. It's now in a vial, and I'm hoping that the others will soon follow. The babies sure look fat. Don't know if that's from egg nutrients that haven' been used up yet or if the mother shared food with them. The lone baby has so far ignored the fruit fly in its vial.

I have seen a few specimen her in Carlsbad, NM that I believe are Calisoga longitarsus. And have one now. Does this species occur in NM. If not, what species occurs in NM that looks like Calisoga longitarsus?